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THE WAY OUT 


The world has had a year of effort and 
experience in after-war reconstruction. Tre- 
mendous things have been proposed and 
‘undertaken. Nothing small or limited has been 
at any time or anywhere admissible. Unless 
you could report a World Vision and a World 
Grasp and faith for a World Victory you were 
not interesting. Tens, hundreds and thousands 
are figures and totals wholly insufficient as our 
register numbers are running into the millions 
and billions. Challenge after challenge has been 
issued as to what ought to be done and how 
to do it. 

There is, however, but one problem. It is 
the eternal human problem. There is but one 
objective. It is the human objective, namely: 
the transformation of the individual man with 
his fullness of human nature into the Christly 
Nature and Life. Institutions of every kind 
and nature whatsoever are but instruments. 
Organizations, whether religious, benevolent or 
humanitarian, exist to mould and _ fashion 
human lives for companionship with God. This 
is the one and only purpose. There is but one 
way out. It is the Christ way. 

Our civilization has been for more than a 
generation and continues to be utilitarian and 
materialistic. The emphasis all along has been 
at the wrong place. Thé individual must be 
reached and every human life coupled or linked 
with God as revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. 
No amount of education or socialistic plans 
and effort will meet the situation. Each individ- 
ual must be brought into personal contact 





2 American Tract Society 


with the life of our Saviour. World-wide re- 
sults can only be realized through the reaching 
and conversion of human units to Christ in all 
lands and nations. 

Ninety-five years ago this month, five or six 
Christian men met in a down-town office for 
conference and prayer, seeking more efficient 
means for giving the Message of Salvation to 
the individual unit of society. The decision was . 
reached that the Gospel or Good News of 
Jesus should be proclaimed through the printed 
page for all classes and conditions of men. 
They also had the faith to believe that pastors, 
Sunday School workers, free tract distributers 
and thousands of professed Christians would be 
both ready and eager to sow the good seed in 
waiting and responsive hearts. Thirty thousand 
dollars were subscribed for the proposed work. 
During the first year 697,900 tracts were pub- 
lished totaling 9,053,000 pages. 


PUBLICATIONS. 


Among the earliest publications was “The 
Dairyman’s Daughter,” and it is known that 
through the distribution of this single leaflet 
many revivals of religion had their origin and 
that tens of thousands of souls were won to 
Christ. “The Swearer’s Prayer” has been in- 
strumental in delivering scores of thousands 
from the sin of profanity. “Jesus Christ For 
Everybody,” by Dr. Theodore Cuyler, has been 
published in a score of languages and dialects 
and its total issue runs into millions of copies. 
The Society’s publications are suitable not only 
for Christians and inquirers but also for the 
bringing of conviction to the indifferent and 
unawakened sinner. Its effort is to issue books 


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4 American Tract Society 


and leaflets that shall meet all the varying con- 
ditions of life, consequently its publications 
enter into the entire range of human experience, 
from the cradle roll with “Songs for the Little 
Ones at Home” to messages of comfort pre- 
pared for those who are seeking for “light at 
evening time.” 


NEW PUBLICATIONS. 


There have been added during the year to 
the Society’s already extended list seven new 
publications, five of which are volumes and 
two envelope tracts, as follows: “The Furnace 
for Gold,” by Emma §&. Allen, and “The Victory 
Life,” by John T. Faris, D. D., the former win- 
ning the first prize and the latter the second 
prize in the Society’s contest for the best manu- 
scripts available for publication; “A Manual of 
American Citizenship,” by Rev. Edwin Noah 
Hardy, Ph. D., and “The Resurrection and the 
Life Beyond,” by David James Burrell, D. D. 
The tracts were “The American Home,” by 
Edgar Whitaker Work, D. D., and “The Ameri- 
can Church,” by Dr. Burrell. “Las Notas 
Explicativas” is a volume of notes on the Inter- 
national Sunday School Lessons in Spanish for 
1920. The total number of publications for the 
year, including volumes, tracts and periodicals, 
iS 2,045,875, many of which have been in French, 
Spanish, Portuguese, and in the dialects of India 
and Africa. The grand total of the Society’s pub- 
lications in all languages and dialects issued at 
the home office during the ninety-five years of 
its history reaches 804,843,750 copies, and the 
number of languages in which the Gospel 
Message has been published by the Tract 
Society totals one hundred and seventy-eight. 


The Way Out 5 


MISSIONARY COLPORTAGE. 


Missionary colportage means carrying the 
Gospel to those who are not receiving it 
through any other channel. The name col- 
porter came into use more than two centuries) 
ago, at the time when Protestant Christians in 
Switzerland carried packs on their backs into 
France in which were hidden Bibles, and when- 
ever opportunity presented the pack was open- 
ed and the Bible read to anxious listeners and 
inquirers. The name was spelled “colporteur,” 
from the Latin collum, meaning the neck, and 
portare, meaning to carry. From that day to 
this the colporter has been an important factor 
in proclaiming the Gospel Message. 


The colporter is, indeed, a_ traveling 
preacher and a part of the infantry corps of 
Christ’s Army. He visits from house to house, 
distributes religious literature suitable both for 
parents and children, and often conversion is 
the result. He also conducts. preaching 
services in the district schoolhouses and or- 
ganizes Sunday Schools which grow into 
churches. If the American Tract Society were 
provided with sufficient funds it would be able 
through its missionary colportage to carry the 
Gospel Message into every home of the nation. 


The Society’s missionary colporters during 
the year have made 207,644 family visits, distrib- 
uted 47,459 volumes of Christian literature 
and conducted 3,418 religious meetings. ~ The 
grand total of missionary colportage for the 
eighty years since this line of service was en- 
tered upon is 19,400,069 family visits, 17,607,583 
volumes distributed, and 611,249 religious meet- 
ings held. 


6 American Tract Society 


WITHOUT PRICE. 


When Jesus sent forth the twelve he said, 
“Freely ye have received, freely give.’ From 
the beginning the American Tract Society has 
distributed many of its religious tracts without 
money and without price. Only through free 
tract distribution can the thousands and even 
millions of our country that are unreached by 
the pastor. and missionary hear the Gospel 
message. The call for free Gospel literature 
is answered through the giving out of tracts 
by Sunday School teachers, street preachers, 
workers in missions, and by many earnest 
Christians, also by the Tract Society sending 
forth its millions of pages of leaflets to the 
Army and Navy, the seamen in our ports, to 
the reformatories, penal and charitable institu- 
tions, and to the lumbermen and miners and 
the ranchmen in the West. 

Examples of conversion have been frequent, 
and have included some of our most prominent 
preachers and laymen. Ralph Wells, the great- 
est Sunday School power in his generation, was 
converted through receiving gratuitously one 
of the publications of the American Tract 
Society, and Dr. George Lorimer, at the age of 
eighteen, was given one of the Society’s tracts 
as he left a theatre in Boston, and through the 
reading of it became soundly converted and 
entered the Christian ministry. A young man 
who had been born and grown up on a ranch 
in the farthest West, when asked if he knew 
Jesus as his Saviour, answered, “I have never 
heard of Him.” He was given a gospel leaflet 
and through it won to Christ. A unique feature 
of free distribution is at Ellis Island where 
Mr. Carol, one of the Society’s colporters, 


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speaks upwards of 14 languages and dialects 
and distributes the gospel message in a still 
larger number of languages. An immigrant 
who was given some tracts wrote: “In the 
immigrants landing-place there in New York 
we received a number of tracts from the agent 
or missionary in the port. We saved the 
papers to read in our new home in the West- 
ern Colony. In entering this country we 
learned that the distributed tracts there in the 
landing-place are given from the Tract Society, 
all for nothing. We got some in English, in 
Polish, Swedish, French, etc. Our colony 
people, 50 families, read the aforenamed lan- 
guages. We will just from the start become a 
good pious Republican people.” 
(Signed) A. Kopittke, 
Chicago, Ill. 

The total value of free distribution for the 
past year was $14,739.42, making a grand total 
of free distribution since the Society’s organi- 
zation of $2,706,797.41, the equivalent of 5,376,- 
220,081 pages of tracts. 


AMERICANIZATION. 


Americanism and Americanization are words 
born out of the throes of the World War. 
Patriotism necessarily ran at high tide and all 
in our own country were called upon to be 100 
per cent. American. Because the 100 per cent. 
was not attained by all, and also because prop- 
aganda opposed to the war and for the un- 
settling and breaking up of our institutions— 
in short, because a propaganda of Bolshevism 
was vigorously entered upon—it followed 
logically and of necessity that a counteracting 
propaganda must be made in behalf of 
Americanism. 


The Way Out 


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10 American Tract Society 


The question has many times been asked, 
“In what does Americanization really consist?” 
Numerous answers have been given, many of 
them falling far short of being a proper and 
sufficient definition. It may be asked, Can any 
man be a good and true citizen of any country, 
unless he is himself as true and complete a 
man as it is possible for him to be through the 
influence that surrounds him and the forces 
operating within him? And it has been abun- 
dantly proven that social environment, educa- 
tion, wealth, culture and the greatest advance 
possible in the arts and sciences do not and 
cannot produce the kind of individual or citizen 
required to make certain national perpetuity. 
Man, by the act of creation, isa child or son of 
God, and Jesus came to teach this great fact. 
In order to grow into the Sonship of God a 
man must have the germ of divine life in his 
soul planted there through faith in Jesus, God’s 
only Son, sent from heaven to save sinners. In 
this fact you have solved, once and forever, the 
whole problem of true citizenship for all 
peoples in all lands. The work, therefore, of 
Americanizing all who live in our own country 
and of making real citizens for all countries 
where men dwell, consists in teaching them 
their true relation to their Creator and Father, 
and with this initiative bringing into their lives 
all that may be brought to them through the 
resultant moral and spiritual uplift and the 
most advanced and refined civilization attain- 
able. . 

The publications of the Tract Society dur- 
ing the past year issued in behalf of Americani- 
zation have been most helpful and effective. 
The “Manual of American Citizenship” has 


The Way Out II 


been especially helpful for the reason that it 
not only gives information as to the settling 
and development of America, but also teaches 
the truths proclaimed by Jesus. It tells of sin 
and temptation, the way of Salvation, the 
meaning of prayer, the Christian life, the Chris- 
tian Church, and the relations of the teachings 
of Jesus and true democracy. 


The tracts on “The American Home” and 
“The American Church,” by Rev. Drs. Work 
and Burrell respectively, and the one on “The 
American Workman,” by Rev. Charles Stelzle, 
are very timely and should be widely read. 


LATIN AMERICA. 


In the present-day world-movement Latin 
America looms large, and cannot be left out of 
the accounting. Eighty millions of people are 
living upon the continent south of us, and there 
is not a more needy people anywhere in the 
world. It has indeed been said of this vast 
population that many millions of them are 
more degraded than the inhabitants of Africa 
or of any heathen country. The commercial 
interests are well looked after; the business re- 
lations were never more promising and en- 
couraging. New steamship lines are being 
established, and new vessels added to the old 
ones, and the volume of trade is steadily in- 
creasing. .There is, happily, a better under- 
standing between the peoples of both countries. 
The great task yet to be performed is the 
social, moral and spiritual uplift of the un- 
christianized millions living in Latin America. 


The American Tract Society began the 
publication of Christian literature in the Span- 


12 American Tract Society 


ish and Portuguese languages almost at the 
opening of Protestant missions, and from that 
time until the present has furnished the prin- 
cipal amount of literature used by the mission- 
aries. It has been said that wherever a 
- missionary was carrying forward his work 
there were sure to be found some of the pub- 
lications of the Tract Society. A most earnest 
appeal is made for special and generous gifts 
in behalf of this most essential line of mission- 
ary service. 

The issuing of the Sunday School Notes in 
the Spanish language for 1920 has been one of 
the most needed and long-sought publications 
that has been prepared for the mission 
churches and Sunday Schools, and it has been 
received with enthusiasm and strong commen- 
dation. The manuscript for the Sunday School 
Notes in Spanish for 1921 is in process of prep- 
aration. 

The Tract Society has issued during the 
past year 1,084,200 volumes, periodicals and 
tracts in Spanish, making the grand total of 
publications in Spanish and Portuguese 19,216,- 
663 amounting in value to $709,351.41. 


CHRISTIAN LITERATURE SUNDAY. 


It was the purpose of the founders of the 
American Tract Society to establish a central 
agency, inviting the co-operation of Evangelical 
Christians of all denominations in publishing 
and circulating religious literature that would 
most effectively “diffuse a knowledge of our 
Lord Jesus Christ as the Redeemer of sinners 
and promote the interests of vital godliness and 
sound morality,” it being understood that the 
Society’s publications should be “calculated to 


The Way Out 











14 American Tract Society 


receive the approbation of all Evangelical 
Christians.” 


Sixty millions of non-church-going people 
in America and the hundreds of millions in 
non-Christian lands who never heard of Jesus 
can be reached through the printed page. 
The American Tract Society, conscious of this 
ever-growing need, has been persuaded that a 
particular Sunday should be set apart during 
each year in order that churches, Sunday 
Schools, young people’s societies and Chris- 
tians generally might have their attention called 
specially to the religious literature branch of 
service so necessary to the extension of Christ’s 
Kingdom. Accordingly, the last Sunday of 
January of each year has been the date ap- 
pointed, henceforth to be known as “Christian 
Literature Sunday.” The imperative need for the 
publication and circulation of vast quantities 
of religious reading in the form of books and 
tracts carrying the Message of Salvation and 
moral and spiritual uplift is made painfully 
evident by the propaganda of Socialism and 
Bolshevism now so extensive throughout our 
entire country. It is believed that there is ° 
scarcely a foreign-speaking person in America 
who is not regularly receiving printed matter 
setting forth the evil doctrines espoused and 
proclaimed by those commonly known as 
“Reds.” Under these conditions it seems al- 
most unnecessary to urge pastors, churches, 
Sunday Schools, and Young People’s Societies, 
in fact all Christian organizations, to annually 
plan for the observance of “Christian Litera- 
ture Sunday,” and as far as is possible make an 
offering in behalf of this most essential depart- 
ment of Evangelism. 


The Way Out 15 





THE WAY OUT. 


When the American Tract Society was or- 
ganized ninety-five years ago, it was with the 
fullest possible conviction that Jesus Christ 
came into the world to save sinners, and that 
other than Him there is no Saviour. To this 
line the Society has steadily and closely hewn. 
It has been affirmed in all of the Society’s pub- 
lications that the regeneration of human hearts 
and lives could be wrought only through faith 
in Christ and that by this means alone could 
men and nations be saved from sin and degra- 
dation. It has stoutly denied that environment, 
no matter how wholesome and helpful, was 
sufficient to transform sinners into saints. It 
has believed that the laying of a new pipe and 
the giving of a fresh coat of paint to the 
hydrant did not and could not cleanse the 
water at its source. 

Much has been written and spoken relating 
to the necessity of solving after-war problems, 
and the imperative need of reconstructing hu- 
man society throughout the world, and of 
bringing about a new alignment in the relations 
of all nations and peoples. It apparently has 
been forgotten that man is no different to-day 
as to his moral and spiritual needs than he has 
been from the beginning. Moreover God’s re- 
lation to man has not changed. The eternal 
God and loving Heavenly Father is still oc- 
cupied with the great task of redemption. He 
has not taken a journey nor is He slumbering. 
Out of the infinite depths of His nature He is 
still calling to men to come unto Him and to 
drink of the Water of Life. The one great essen- 
tial is the turning of the mind and heart of all 
men to God as revealed in Jesus. He is the 


16 American Tract Society 


Way and the only way out. As a consequence 
we are face to face with the greatest problem of 
‘modern times, namely, the winning of men to 
Christ as their personal Saviour and Redeemer. 
If we do not learn this central and eternal fact 
voluntarily, we shall be compelled to learn it 
through pain, suffering and sorrow. 

People seem to have become money-mad. 
On every hand there is the most persistent and 
earnest effort to obtain an increase of material 
things. The lust for gold is unparalleled and 
apparently dominates nearly all of human ef- 
fort. The only way of deliverance from what 
is sordid and destructive of the highest and best 
of which man is capable is for each individual 
of whatever age or condition to yield the keep- 
ing of his heart and life to Christ, the only 
Saviour of men and nations. For this great 
and glorious consummation the American Tract 
Society has been conducting a strenuous drive 
for ninety-five years through proclaiming the 
Glad Tidings of Salvation by means of the 
printed page. The results are beyond computa- 
tion. Publications have been issued in one 
hundred and seventy-eight languages and dia- 
lects, totaling 804,843,750 copies. If, as is 
generally believed, these have been read by not 
less than three persons each, 2,414,531,250 
people have received the Gospel Message, and 
hundreds of thousands have been saved unto 
eternal life. 


fag oLaft 





Life Members and Directors 


~The donation of $30 at one time consti- . 
tutes a Life Member of the American Tract 
Society; the addition of $70, or the donation 
of $100 at one time, a Life Director. Life 
Members may receive annually tracts to the 
value of $1; Life Directors to the value of 
$2, if applied for within the Society's year, 

from April 1st to April 1st, in person or by 
merits order (NG individualcan draw more 
than one annuity any year for himself. Gol- 

porte are not authorized to supply Life 

embers. 


Have You Remembered the American 
Tract Society in Your Will? 
FORM OF BEQUEST 
I give and bequeath to ““THE AMERICAN 
TRAGT SOGIETY,” instituted in the City of 
New York, May, 1825, the sum of... 
dollars to be applied to the charitable uses 


and purposes of said Society. 

Three witnesses should state that the testator de- 
clared this to be his last will and testament, and that 
they signed it at his request, and in his presence and 
the presence of each other. 


AMERICAN TRACT SOGIETY 


HOME OFFICE 
Park Ave, amd 40th St., New York, N. Y. 





Kimerican Cract Society 


PARK AVENUE AND FORTIETH STREET 
NEW YORK 








President: 
WILLIAM PHILLIPS HALL 


Vice-President: 
DAVID JAMES BURRELL, D.D. 


General Secretary: 
JUDSON SWIFT, D. D. 


Recording Secretary: 
REV. HENRY LEWIS, Ph. D. 


General Field Secretary: 
REV. EDWIN NOAH HARDY, Ph. D. 


Field Secretary of the West and Northwest: 
REY. P. MARION SIMMS, Ph. D. 


Treasurer: 
LOUIS TAG 


EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE; 
Davip JAMES BurRRELL, D. D. Rosert Scort Ineuis, D. D. 


Ep@aRk WHITAKER WoRK, D. D. Sinas F. Hauuock, M. D. 
FREDERICK H. KNUBEL, D.D. Davip WILLS, D. D. 


Rev. H. FRANCIS PERRY Epwakp L. SUFFERN 

Henry M. Brown, D. D. WILLIAM PHILLIPS HALL 
ROBERT M. Kurtz S. V. V. Hunt:neton 

Isaac W. Gowen, D. D. REv. EpGak FRANKLIN RomIG 
Robert Watson, D. D. S. B. CHapPin 


Donations should be forwarded to Louis Tag, Treasurer, 
American Tract Society, Park Avenue and Fortieth Street, 
New York, N. Y. 





